[tropo]

We don't eat bugs because nobody has yet developed a machine that can affordably extract the meat.

We don't eat cattle whole. When we make burgers, we leave out the skin and poop and horns and teeth. Bugs aren't any different.

[Retra]

If you were 1000x the size of a cow, you probably could (and would) eat it whole, as your teeth would mash through bone and skin without a problem.

[tropo]

I could, but I wouldn't, because those parts taste bad. The poop is particularly awful.

[beatgammit]

The are a lot of things that people eat whole, such as sardines, anchovies, and other small fish. Some cultures even use bile as a flavoring (see Papaitan from the Philippines), and others eat bugs (crickets and grasshoppers are very popular).

[tropo]

In the USA we don't do that.

Our sardines and anchovies have the head and guts removed, and probably the tail. We do sometimes eat skin and bones. The same goes for canned salmon and herring.

We also peel, decapitate, and gut our shrimp. This is probably a better comparison because the exoskeleton is similar.